The present invention relates to replacement door devices for railway box cars, and more particularly to adjustable replacement door devices that are adjustable in both height and width.
It has been found that in the operation of railroad, boxcar doors are frequently damaged during the loading and unloading of materials from the boxcars. Because the railroad industry has no standard size boxcar doors, that is, every manufacturer produces cars having doors of different size, boxcar doors are varied in height and width. Replacement doors are too expensive for railroad companies to stock because of the many varied types of boxcar doors need.
Consequently a boxcar with a damaged door can be lost for a great period of time, in some cases longer than one year, while waiting for a replacement door to be found and/or fabricated. Not only does the railroad company lose money because the boxcar is idle and replacement doors are quite expensive, the railroad companies are also subject to be fined by the regulatory agencies for any railroad cars, including boxcars that are awaiting repairs, which are out of service for over one year.
Various means have been provided for improving boxcar door devices. Some such prior arrangements are illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,513,783--Mayfield; U.S. Pat. No. 3,149,664--Keating; and U.S. Pat. No. 2,968,844--Formanski.
However none of these devices have arrangements that provide an inexpensive and time-saving arrangement to replace damaged boxcar doors.
One additional problem commonly encountered with boxcar doors is that the door tracks, on which the wheels attached to the bottom of the boxcar door roll as the door is opened and closed, often becoming uneven, and bumps or irregularities develop in the tracks with long periods of service. These irregularities and unevenness of the door tracks are caused by many factors including the weight of the forklifts, utilized in loading or unloading the boxcars, or other accidents such as mishandling material as it is being loaded or unloaded. If the irregularities are great enough, they can cause the boxcar door to bind so the door will not open or close properly, or not at all. Heretofore it has been necessary to straighten or replace the tracks on with the boxcar doors slide. Such repairs are time consuming, expensive and further result in loss of the use of the boxcar or boxcars being repaired.